It's approaching midmorning in Paris as Trixie guides her rented Ducati sportsbike to a stop in front of an ancient building that has clearly seen better days. Removing her helmet and giving her head an almost dramatic shake to free her hair and settle the long pigtails about her shoulders, she gives the building a long looking-over. "Hope Pam's info is right... this place looks like nobody's been near it in years," she muses, flicking down the kickstand and swinging her leg over the bike's massive, sleek frame to dismount, then picking her way across the tiny, messy courtyard to the front door, her thumb finding the buzzer button instinctively.

The buzzer is pressed. And makes no sound what so ever. There may be a disconnected wire inside. Luckily enough, the door itself seemed unlocked, the sound of a band saw going off inside. SOmewhere deeper than the foyer, which seems to have a lot of plywood bording up broken windows, and one placed over a hole in the floor reading 'no step'. The furniture in the foyer looks a bit dusty and torn, and from the late 90s in style.

The first floor might be impressive... if it wasn't covered in trash. Someone had been moving files from cabinents in a hurry previously, and they're cleaned up in haphazard stacks on the floor. There's an entire wall in a clean off white drywall, the type that contrasts with the ones with holes and torn wiring. A figure in ratty clothes, work gloves, and what looks like respirator straps was in front of a bandsaw, making a cut of wood, the noise most likely keeping him from hearing anything.

The saw shuts off for a moment, and he's looking over the most recent board, reaching for a tape measure.

"Helloooooooo..!" Trixie calls as she opens the door, letting her cheerleader's lungs project the call for maximum distance, if not necessarily maximum volume. She steps inside carefully, conscious of the dust and the mess in general. "Geez, what did someone /do/ to this place?" she asks herself, staring at the wreckage of the first story, before knocking solidly on the glass panel of the door sharply. "Excuse me, sir? Can you help me?"

It might be the hearing protection that had the figure keep from doing much responding to her call out from the foyer, and the idle commentary as he walks in, but with that saw off, he's got a bit more ability to hear. But he may be on edge, because when she rapts on the glass and calls out, he's turned around in an instant, safty goggles showing eyes with a cold suprise, a SIG P220 drawn from a holster at his back, pointing through the glass at Trixe's center mass.

It's a split second, at which point he might find himself a bit more in danger than he though, before the pistol raises up, and the figure shakes his head. Pistol goes back to the holster behind him, and he moves to remove the PPE for a moment, respirator pulled off and hanging around his neck, glasses up near the hard hat. "Christ, MacKenzie. Sorry, sorry. Forgot you were coming." He walks forward, moving to open the glass door. "Grab a mask, would you? I'm still not sure there's not asbestos around here. I'm almost certain, but this place wasn't owned by savory people."

Trixie sees the move to draw and hastily restrains herself from drawing her own pistol, a move that might turn a reflexive draw into a reflexive shot. Otherwise, they would be staring down one another's gun barrels right now. She sighs in soft relief as he reholsters the weapon and moves to open the door. "Thank you, Sir. I'll do that," she says, moving to claim a spare respirator and don it. "It sure looks like it wasn't. Just who was it that made such a hash of the interior?" she asks, moving to follow wherever he may lead her.

Stadler should appreciate that... but you know he's not. He simply shakes his head and resecures his respirator for the moment, then saftey goggles. "I appreciate it. I really couldn't afford the law suit if you got mesothelioma and decided to sue. Be a bit wrong of me to bring you in her to make you regret it in 20 years. ANd I have no goddamn idea." He says, walking around , up to the second floor. It's in rather the same condition, the look that there might have been a few animals up here, a graffiti aritist having made a canvas of the wall here. "A lot of it was probably from the previous owners. They destroyed some documents, but they didn't have the ability to destory many, so they just smashed things up. Deliqunets and gangs did the rest. By the way, let me see your gun."

"Meso-what-the-whatsis? Doc, can you speak English, please? I have a hard enough time understanding the native French." Trixie follows Stadler up to the second floor, trying not to stare at the sheer mess of the place. "Looks like some other folks helped them along with wrecking the place after they'd left," she muses, eyeing the graffiti.

She rolls her eyes dramatically at the question, rather like an annoyed Valley Girl, and shifts her triangular black slingpack around to the front, unzipping its sideseam to reveal not one, but two stainless steel Beretta M92s with aftermarket grips, holstered side by side. She removes one carefully, making sure the safety decocker switch is down before passing it to him. A closer look at the weapon reveals the markings unique to a Samurai Edge, the handgun issued to S.T.A.R.S. officers. It also reveals that the weapon is a M96, the .40-caliber version of the M92. Probably one of the only M96's made for the RPD. "Do you need to see them both, Sir?" she asks, just in case.

"Nope. I hang on to my degree like a man holds onto a life perserver. So expect the odd larger word. I'm sure you'll get the hang of things as you go along." He says, moving to open another door on the second floor. This leads to a larger office. It might have even been nice, at one point, if it still wasn't in disarray, the leather chair wasn't scuffed and covered in black duct tape, and there wasn't still the odd condom on the ground. Stadler spots one, growls, and moves to pick it up gingerly with one hand, tossing it into a waste basket that Trixie is probably best not looking in. "Of course they did. You know what they say. Break one window, and people will break others. I'm pretty sure someone's filmed porn in here. And not the classy type."

He, of course, keeps his respirator on, as he moves to sit in the chair, in front of the desk, geasturing to one of the cheap fabric and wooden chairs scavenged from the downstairs foyer. This is after, of course, he examines the weapon she was carrying, visually, and nodding. "Just need to see that you're carrying. Proper paranoia is one of my watchwords these days."

"Maybe. I'm not counting on it," Trixie replies softly, gingerly stepping into the office behind him, grimacing as he deals with the particularly disgusting litter. "/Gross/... are you sure you want to... do /whatever/ you're doing with this place... well, with /this/ place? Seems like you could find someplace less messed up, y'know? Unless the Parisian real estate market really is that bad."

She stands across the desk from him, looking for a chair that might be somewhat clean, or at least won't come apart violently underneath her when she sits down. "The other's been tweaked to fire those new incendiaries that make such a mess of B.O.W.'s, for what it's worth. I've been carrying them ever since I first had shore leave here. No point taking braindead chances."

Rick waves his hand to the chair across from him. It /looks/ strudy and clean enough to sit down on. "New incendaries. Don't know what to think about those. Have you seen the cost projections on those things? 2 dollars a goddamn round, and we're not exactly swimmming in money here. Watch how many of those you use, though... Good God, don't actually die."

With that, he leans back in the chair, looking over to Trixie, than past her, into the other room, or another place. "That house. I had all sorts of things to do there. Redid the kitchen three years ago; found the right backsplash. Added some granite countertops. Speant six months working over the basement. We had just moved carpets into it. I was trying to wire it with cable when I had some time. It was a nice project. All of it was. Really working on my family's... castle in suburbia. And then..."

He pauses for a moment. "So. I have a small room on a carrier that should be SUVs by now. A boarding room here, a bare apartment back in Denver. So, I need a project. And since I don't have the money to build that increasing paranoid lake house that's in my head somewhere... off the grid in Michigan, this is my project."

"No, but I had a feeling they were through the roof. Are they dangerous to use? I mean, besides the incendiary part and all?" Trixie asks, noting the concern. As he waxes nostalgic, she listens, blinking hard occasionally as she brushes the dust from the indicated chair and takes a seat. "You sound like Dad sometimes. He always wanted a lakeshore property. In the end, I was damned lucky I got to bury my family properly, before things went to Hell. Was luckier that I didn't join them."

She shakes her head at the mention of the ship, hanging her head. "I wish you luck with the project, Sir. I can't be off that ship for good soon enough," she whispers. "Nothing's worked out like it should've when we went regular Army. We're not working together, and we both got demoted to boot. Even getting selected for this outfit's been nothing but a sick joke. It's like the Pentagon's got no idea what we're really up against... shoving ugly uniforms and expensive toy guns into our hands and throwing us at Umbrella to kill monsters they barely want to believe exist. And then they expect us to hide it all to boot."

Stadler has to give a shurg as she asks a rather critical question he simply does'nt no the answer to. "I haven't gotten enough specs on them. They seem safe... but I'd keep in mind they're mostly experimental rounds that require total weapon conversions and whose primary use is in situations where all the documents are redacted." He says, as she sets herself down in that chair. "Old people that survive long enough sound the Same... though I feel I've aged a decade in a year. I'm... concerned about where my though processes... go sometimes. feeling a bit untethered."

He takes a breath, and leans forward. "But that's what I expected. I've seen some reports after that terrorist issue down here. A new quarantine zone for us to all be concerned about." But hhe has to give a mirthless smile. "Oh, but I /wish/ the government acted like that. Gave us every resources we wanted and listened to every word we said. I suppose I could say a few things. Like how hiding this sort of thing is needed to keep the public from creating a panic that would be worse than the disease, or that there's only so much money to go around and we're not getting any of it. Cold comfort, I know. But at least I got back up to rank. Stick around, you'll make your way up, too. And I hope you'll stay."

He leans back. "Because, this? This sick joke, this shit show? This is the /best/ we have. We're armed with Fabrique Nationale weapons that looked futuristic in '95, sure, and working a rusted hulk of metal, but we are /the/ most organized game in town. What, you think TerraSave is going to do anything about it? That goddamn non-profit running around with guns? They don't have the coordination and the resources, however scant, that we have. And as weak as we are, without us, without you, we're going to lose more lives. That, and...

"Try /no comfort/, Sir," Trixie replies, a brittle edge entering her voice as she lifts her head. Her eyes are wide and her fists clenched on her thighs, leaving stretch marks on her leather pants. "This mushroom treatment they're pushing is how we lost Raccoon City... keeping a lid on things until it was way past too late. The city higher-ups being complicit in the act doesn't change how it happened. How human beings just trying to help what they thought were people in need were turned into monsters without any damned idea how to keep themselves safe from the infected. And we're expected to be /part of/ that stonewall now. Calling it a shit show is a /compliment/."

She sniffles, hastily lowering her head as he goes on. "I'm almost afraid to hear you out, Sir, especially if you think I should stay in this mess. But I will... because, damn it, I'm just that /stupid/..." Her composure begins to crumble, the first harsh, wracking sobs forcing their way out past gritted teeth and eyes painfully squeezed shut.